Jonathan
Winters reveals tips
On the legendary development of his unique characters
&
His improvisational work with Robin Williams on "Mork and Mindy"

Examples:

Dean Martin & Jonathan Winters - Vacation People. (10:00)

Christmas with Dad (5:12):
Jonathan
Winters on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson"
1) As the opening bits are weak:drag the playhead to the 7:05 point
where you
will see Winters in the same jacket and tie pictured in the above screen shot
of
Jonathan
Winters "doing panel" with Johnny Carson.
Watch the whole bit from start to finish.
Then, watch it again to see how Winters builds the bit to finally "get" Carson.
At 11:03 into the video, when Winters tells the walnuts bit,
you will see one
of the rare moments when Carson laughs so hard
that at the 11:15 point, Carson involuntarily spins himself around in his
swivel chair.

2) Alternately, you can click this link which will take you to the youtube.com
web site with this video clip
already cued to 7:05 into
the timecode.
After watching the final 5:12 of this 12:17 video,
simply click your web browser's Back Button to return to this web page.http://youtu.be/qOW5eR13xRg?t=7m5sThe tips:

Jonathan Winters on
advice for aspiring comedians:
Where to find your characters only 12 miles from where
you now live. (6:33)

Jonathan Winters on drawing inspiration from real life people for his characters. (4:48)

Despite rumors to the contrary, only 5% of what got on the air was actually
improvised.
The other 95% of the time,
they were both following a tight script created by the
show's writers. (7:04)

Jim has a sudden afterthought:

Nonetheless, it is
well known that both Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams
used improvisation to
initially create their own stand-up comedy bits
before setting their lines,
delivery and movements.

Jim Richardson will be teaching this creative process,
as well as many more aspects of
improvisation
•during both writing and on-stage performing,
in his January 5-February 10, 2015 in-person Workshop:"Improvisation:
Thinking on Your Feet".Page created: Sunday, August 24, 2014, 5 pm PST and updated: Sunday,
November 22, 2014, 2:28 pm PST.